I got a little time to work on Scout-related stuff this weekend, and it felt good to make some progress. Because I couldn’t leave the house on Saturday, I worked on the spare dash in the basement. I got the entire thing disassembled except for the washer control and spent an hour cleaning about a pound of swamp mud from the backside of the sheet metal.
When it was dry, it didn’t look like it was in bad shape at all. There was some surface rust and some corrosion on all surfaces, though, so I went at it with some fine-grit sandpaper and a lot of elbow grease.
When it was cleaned up enough for my liking, I hit it with some automotive primer to see if I’d missed anything; it turned out much better than I’d expected. I have to wet sand it down before I hit it with the finish coat of satin black, but I’m really pleased with the results. I can’t wait to put it all back together.
Out in the garage on Sunday, I started pulling the old fan shroud off to get a better look at the fan assembly, and one half of it fell off. From what it looks like, after the PO added a 2″ body lift, the radiator moved in relation to the fan—and the coolant hose on top. In order to fit the shroud under the hose and over the fan blades, he chopped the bottom half off and then must have snapped the shroud in two to fit underneath. Or, perhaps the shroud came into contact with the heat from the hose and snapped on its own. Either way, it’s off now; I’ll use it as a template for the new shroud mounts and then toss the pieces.
It turns out the dead headlight was only playing dead; I fooled with the connector a while and found that there’s a dead spot on the female side. I’ll have to read up on how to clean the contact inside the plastic housing.
Finally, I bought a 25′ length of flexible HVAC hose and hooked it to the second tailpipe, primed the carb and turned her over for about 5 minutes, long enough to get some water out of the tailpipes and scoot her back a foot or so. I have to tighten up the hose so the exhaust doesn’t blow it off and open the other windows, but it sure felt good to hear that thing turn over again.